Superhero Math Adds Up Pop Culture Heroes and Villains
Is there a unifying mathematical theory to describe heroes and villains, a calculus of criminals and crime fighters that can be reduced to a handful of simple equations? What operations determine whether Harrison Ford is a globetrotting archeologist or an unwitting replicant? What additions or subtractions make one man a Dr. Manhattan and another a Dr. Evil? What is the mathematical difference between the Avengers and the JLA? Designer Matt Cowan has been playing around with pop culture maths, designing posters that outline the logic behind the characters we love.Cowan posted the first of his "Pop-Culture Maths" series, titled "Superhero Mathematics," with the tagline: "Being a superhero is easy, if you know what to add or subtract." Since then, he's figured out the formulas for various folk: aliens, superheroes, zombie fighters and the actors who play them again and again.
Cowan also sells t-shirts based on this and his other pop culture series.
Avengers Maths: Which suggests that the Hulk burst out of a purple dude's skin after a run-in with a rogue emoticon.
See more at Cowan's Deviantart.